Faith, Science and the Persecution of Richard Sternberg

A fellow Catholic is now being persecuted, in no small part, because of his religion.

You haven’t heard about it — nor are you likely to — precisely because it is just the kind of story the reigning media assiduously ignore. The powers-that-be are trying to round up scientist Richard Sternberg and hound him out of town (the town, in this instance being Washington, D.C.). All in the name of secularist ideology posing as science.

Before we turn to Sternberg’s interesting case, we should recall the recent clarifying words about evolutionary theory by Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schonborn in his now-famous New York Times op-ed, “Finding Design in Nature.”

“The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection — is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” (emphasis added)

Sternberg is being driven out of his job as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History by ideologues.

A little background: Rick Sternberg is extremely well qualified for his position. He has two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology — one in molecular evolution and the other in systems theory and theoretical biology. He has published more than 30 very technical articles in respected biological journals.

Everyone was quite happy with his work, both as staff scientist with the National Center for Biotechnology Information and as a research associate at the Smithsonian.

All was well until Sternberg, as managing editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, allowed a technical paper critical of neo-Darwinism to be published: “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” written by Steven Meyer.

Meyer’s Ph.D. is in the history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University. He is an advocate of Intelligent Design.

Instead of engaging Meyer’s paper through argument, the powers-that-be simply dismissed it as religious tripe, and began attacking Sternberg with startlingly underhanded animus, doing anything they could to make his life miserable to indelibly soil his reputation and to drive him out the Smithsonian.

First, Smithsonian officials tried to remove him directly, charging that as managing editor he had violated the publication process. But Sternberg followed the procedure perfectly. He discussed publication with a fellow scientist at the Smithsonian, and before publication he had the article peer-reviewed by three molecular and evolutionary biologists — all with doctoral degrees.

Unable to trump up any legitimate charges, Smithsonian officials went after him indirectly, creating an intolerable work environment, smearing him with false allegations, pressuring the National Center for Biotechnology Information to fire him, and worst of all, investigating his personal religious and political beliefs behind the scenes.

The interesting thing in regard to this last skullduggery of prying into his religion is that Sternberg is not an advocate of Intelligent Design, but of the structuralist approach to biology. But the assumption of those “digging for dirt” was that, if he believed in God, then his skull was obviously soft enough to admit Meyer’s paper rather than reject it outright.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel was called in to investigate. Its officials decided unambiguously in Sternberg’s favor, although officials at the Smithsonian have now stoutly refused to cooperate with the investigation. Small wonder, given their less-than-admirable methods of trying to destroy Sternberg.

Reading the Special Council’s report is an eye-opener. Before the Smithsonian stopped cooperating with the investigation, behind-the-scenes e-mail correspondence was gathered by investigators. It is clear from reading them that Smithsonian officials had little but contempt for religious believers:

“After spending 4.5 years in the Bible Belt,” said one,” I have learned how to carefully phrase things in order to avoid the least amount of negative repercussions for the kids. … The most fun we had by far was when my son refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the ‘under dog’ part.”

Charming. The e-mails reveal what is truly behind the “careful phrasing” of these scientist-administrators. They are secularist ideologues with a barely suppressed disdain for believers.

“It is clear that I was targeted for retaliation and harassment explicitly because I failed in an unstated requirement in my role as editor of a scientific journal,” Sternberg contends. “I was supposed to be a gatekeeper turning away unpopular, controversial, or conceptually challenging explanations of puzzling natural phenomena. Instead I allowed a scientific article to be published critical of neo-Darwinism, and that was considered an unpardonable heresy.”

Interesting, isn’t it? Can you imagine a scientist of Sternberg’s stature being persecuted because he allowed a paper to be published that concluded evolution occurs as “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” and that consequently all notions of a Creator God are entirely groundless? Of course not. That’s orthodoxy. Or is it ideology masquerading as science?

One thing is for certain. Sternberg is still being persecuted behind the scenes for daring to allow science to question science.

You raise some good points. But I would quarrel with your statement that "Darwinism itself is neutral." Darwin himself held that there was no qualitative difference between man and other animals. Moreover, Darwinist theory allows that mankind can change into a significantly different species over time--even a non-rational, non-communal species, given the right environment. This poses a bunch of philosophical and theological questions, which need to be addressed.

This whole ID vs. Darwinism debate is screwed up because Darwin himself was a bit confused about the relation of philosophy to science and vice versa. In many ways, we continue this confusion.

Also, I don't think Darwin thought of science in the same way that the Gaudium et Spes presents the field of inquiry. There are "false friends" not only across language barriers, but within one language itself.

"What I do have a problem with in Darwinism is the blatant effort to paper over Darwin's muddled, and sometimes downright evil, philosophical claims that too often accompany his better-formed scientific speculations."

What evil claims?

" Darwin's cousin, "respectable Victorian gentleman" Francis Galton, was the founder of the eugenics movement."

Galton had the same prejudices as the vast majority of people at the time. His view of eugenics was that the better *fit* should be encouraged to have more children. It wasn't about forced sterilization or the forced segregation of the *less fit*. It was still wrong, but it's conclusions about the relative superiority of different races and social classes was just a reflection of the prevailing views throughut Victorian educated society. Non-evolutionists came to the same conclusions but just used different arguments (many times biblical). It's almost impossible to find a non-racist from that time.

"Karl Marx actually asked Charles Darwin if he could dedicate Das Kapital to him, and Darwin only refused because he knew Marx's patent atheism would upset his wife."

That and the fact that he was a free-market whig who didn't like socialism. It must also be remembered that at the time , Marx and Engels were second tier socialists who were not widely know outside of socialist circles. It wasn't until the 20th century that Marx's name became widely known.

" Darwin himself was the first Social Darwinist, as well, but I won't take the time to plug in my sources."

Now you have him responsible for ruthless laizie-faire capitalism, whereas before he was responsible for Marx. The term is more correctly called Social Spencerism, as Spencer was the originator and principal defender. Darwin hardly spoke a word about applying evolution to anything but biology.

"Darwin himself latched on to the execrable Herbert Spencer's term "survival of the fittest."

The mistake was in the statement's clumsiness, not in any evil consequences of it's implications. The survival of the fittest simply means that those who are best adapted to their present environment (including both living and non-living aspects) will on average leave more offspring than those less adapted. It is not a political statement as Darwin used it. Spencer did poorly word it though, and it is regrettable that Darwin chose to include it in later versions of The Origin of Species.

All of this of course has nothing to do with whether the ToE is correct. Even if some people abuse a theory doesn't make it wrong. Arguments from Consequences is a logical fallacy.

"Process structuralist position in biology, while the more popular two options rely upon historical claims. If anybody can explain it to me, please do."

The idea of process structuralism is to simply view the biological world as it is, trying to find identifying patterns and themes, without regard to its history or development.

For example, physics is a description of reality that does not rely on knowing the past history of a particle for its usefulness. You classify a particle "oh! it's C12!" and its former history is irrelevant to how it behaves now. It might have started out as C14 and decayed to C12, or it might have started as something smaller and fused to make C12, but the important part is that it is C12 _now_, and therefore, calculations on the motion and interactions of the particle have nothing to do with its life history.

Structuralists usually look at life in terms of traits that are grouped together. Animals that have X usually also have Y. They study the patterns of how animals exist.

This doesn't mean they don't look at evolution, but it means that they don't view evolution in the same way. Sternberg in particular views evolution as a whole-genome idea, not as an incremental process of randomized mutations. He views the genome as having a higher-order structure that is kept intact through change. Anyway, I haven't read this paper yet, but have requested it on ILL, but it should give you some insight into how Process Structuralists (and Sternberg in particular) view biological evolution:

The role of constrained self-organization in genome structural evolution

I have also heard the book Following Form and Function is a good intro to process structuralism, though, again, I am still waiting for it from inter-library loan.

"What about the evolutionary biologists who reviewed it? "

I read their comments before. They didn't focus on the scientific merits either. Controversy was their consideration.

"What about the president of the BSW who reviewed the peer review file and said that, scientifically, the paper was justified in being published?"

Procedure was followed, that's all the pres. can claim, because the paper itself is junk science.

"Are all of these people part of a mass conspiracy to prevent science from occurring?"

ID isn't science.

Proof:

ID uses the laws of physics to make some calculation. The ID guy swears his logic is OK and his math likewise. The output of his calculation says, "the result of the calculation can't explain the observaitons."

There are then 2 remaining possibilities, because he swears his model is good:

1) The model is missing some -knowledge and understanding(of physics)
2) The model is right, the physics are 100% correct, that's all the physics there is, and there's an unknown arbitrary force.

Take your choice:

The laws of physics are not sufficient and you abandon science and hire a shaman to conjure up the arbitrary force(s), else they are and you stick with science, admit ignorance and work harder.

"I read their comments before."

You did? And where did you get access to this document? I don't believe it's open to the public.

"Procedure was followed, that's all the pres. can claim, because the paper itself is junk science."

The president examined the peer-review file, and established that everything was in order.

Your description of ID is quite faulty. The problem is not that ID finds any hole X in the theory, and at that point inserts a random diety. Instead, what happens is that ID finds a hole X in the theory, where that hole corresponds exactly to how designers normally operate, and therefore infers that the most rational explanation that we know of so far is that there was a designer involved. A design inference requires both parts to be true, not just the former as you indicate.

You seem to think that teleologic arguments are excluded a priori. How can science discount its own workings? Is not science itself purpose-driven? The entire operation of science is by people making purpose-driven experiments, yet it is looked at as invalid if purpose is ever taken into account in those experiments themselves as a potential causitive term.

"where did you get access to this document?

There have been articles containing that info on FR.

"Your description of ID is quite faulty."

My description is accurate. The "hole" you mention is that the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the observed phenominon. That hole is an artifact of faulty science, not anything real.

"The problem is not that ID finds any hole X in the theory, and at that point inserts a random diety. Instead, what happens is that ID finds a hole X in the theory, "where that hole corresponds exactly to how designers normally operate," and therefore infers that the most rational explanation that we know of so far is that there was a designer involved."

The "correspondence to design" is as bogus as the hole. The hole says the laws of physics fail to account for the observations and requires one to abandon them. It's in the abandonment of the laws of physics, that "correspondence to design" is conjured up. There's also no difference between an arbitrary designer and an arbitrary diety. Arbitrary is the keyword and anything can be molded to fit, just as everything after the abandonment of physics is.

" A design inference requires both parts to be true, not just the former as you indicate."

Wrong. All of these design inferences are obtained by first admitting failure and claiming it is impossible to ever know and understand the matter with physical laws. The inference which is probably true, is that errors were made in the original anlysis. A declaration must be made that they are insufficiennt to govern the world. Then, those same laws must be used to construct and develope the "design" claim. It's not science, it's the art of the con.

"You seem to think that teleologic arguments are excluded a priori."

Design requires a sentient being. The laws of physics are not a sentient being. They also do not contain "purpose". Also, no sentient being can be demonstrated, or examined by science.

"it is looked at as invalid if purpose is ever taken into account in those experiments themselves as a potential causitive term."

Causation is an action. Define and quantify purpose. Write down the equation for the "purpose field". How is this "purpose field" coupled to the energy field. How is this "purpose field" coupled to the stress-energy tensor, since it appears in addiiton to it?

"There have been articles containing that info on FR."

Until you give me a link contradicting this, I see no reason to trust you over Sternberg, who said:

The reviewers did not necessarily agree with Dr. Meyer's arguments but all found the paper meritorious, warranting publication. The reviewers disagreed on specific details but all agreed that the issues raised by Meyer were worthy of scientific debate.

Furthermore, while I too disagreed with several important aspects of the paper, I concurred in the view that it was worthy of publication and debate. Since the time of the publication of the paper, several members of the Biological Society of Washington have told me that they found the paper "stimulating" and "informative," that it brings to the fore complex and important issues that most biologists want to avoid.

This only indicates that it wasn't "science" if you think that "science" means that everyone has to agree.

"My description is accurate. The "hole" you mention is that the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the observed phenominon. That hole is an artifact of faulty science, not anything real."

So you think that physics is a complete description of reality? In that case, you would have to abandon any notion of reason, accountability, or will, as all of them entail aspects of not only non-determinism, but choice. If physics is a complete description of reality, then choice is non-existent. If choice exists, then physics is incomplete by itself.

"The hole says the laws of physics fail to account for the observations and requires one to abandon them. It's in the abandonment of the laws of physics, that "correspondence to design" is conjured up."

This is completely contrary to fact. While many creationists (including myself) think that supernatural occurrences are a part of life and the history of life, Intelligent Design does not rely on the failure of the laws of physics for any aspect -- only their incompleteness as described above. The laws of physics do in fact describe the constraints upon which choices are made. But that does not make it a complete description of reality. And when multiple pieces are working in coordination to accomplish a goal that is accomplished by precise tasking, timing, and tooling, it is evidence that many choices were made, and all made with the end-purpose (teleology) in mind. It is not an abandonment of physics to think that things were built with a purpose. Is it an abandonment of physics to think that my monitor was built with a purpose?

"Design requires a sentient being. The laws of physics are not a sentient being. They also do not contain "purpose". Also, no sentient being can be demonstrated, or examined by science."

This would indicate one of two things: either (a) sentient beings don't exist, and therefore physics is a complete description of reality, or (b) sentient beings do exist, and therefore physics is not a complete description of reality. You then state that therefore, science itself cannot demonstrate or examine sentient beings. While you seem to have vacillated between (a) and (b) within the paper, it is a little tough for me to see which you are alluding to. Let's assume it is (b) for the moment. In this case, you are the one who is guilty of an argument from incredulity, because you believe that sentience is something which cannot be examined. While ID'ers agree that _physics_ is not a full understanding of life, they would disagree that sentience is something that is outside of examination altogether. In fact, sentience is precisely the thing under examination by Dembski and the rest. You simply say "it can't be done!" and you would halt or disparage the research of those attempting it. If your argument is in fact (a) then my response is in the preceeding paragraphs.

"So you think that physics is a complete description of reality?

For the purposes of the scientific study of the machinery of life, yes.

"In that case, you would have to abandon any notion of reason, accountability, or will, as all of them entail aspects of not only non-determinism, but choice. If physics is a complete description of reality, then choice is non-existent. If choice exists, then physics is incomplete by itself."

Not at all. Reason, accountability, Free will and other similar objects depend upon physics for their very existence. Without the physics, there is no machine to support rational thought and exercise Free will. Those things don't exist on their own, they are creations of the machine called mind. Biologists know that those things are functions of the brain.

"While many creationists (including myself) think that supernatural occurrences are a part of life and the history of life, Intelligent Design does not rely on the failure of the laws of physics for any aspect -- only their incompleteness as described above.

I said ID says they are insufficient. IDers complete them with supernatural forces in an arbitrary way. Well that's not science. If the supernatural forces can't be demonstrated so others can reliably and repeatedly examine them, then they are not a proper subject for science. Especially biology, since the machinery of life can be known and understood with physics. Physics which has shown itself to be complete and sufficient to know and understand the world.

" when multiple pieces are working in coordination to accomplish a goal that is accomplished by precise tasking, timing, and tooling, it is evidence that many choices were made, and all made with the end-purpose (teleology) in mind.

It is not evident at all that any choices were made. You are talking the results of function of a biological machine. You are talking about the machine which became as it is, because the physics of this world are what they are. There is no evidence whatsoever that any biological organism was designed. All the evidence points to life arising out of the physics.

"It is not an abandonment of physics to think that things were built with a purpose."

You are talking about life, so in that case it is. Purpose is not physical, it doesn't appear in the physics at all.

" Is it an abandonment of physics to think that my monitor was built with a purpose?"

It's clear it was and anyone can point to the beings that made it and examine them. It is also a dumb device, w/o life that can not arise out of the physics at all. It can't duplicate itself, nor can it support the objects of mind. The processor itself can't even do that.

" This would indicate one of two things: "

LOL... Your logic suffers from bias. You should have written and pondered (c) sentient beings do exist and they arise out of the physics of this world. That is what science holds and is the only scientific possibility, because the physics of this world is observed to be complete and consistent.

" ...sentience is something that is outside of examination altogether.

Sentience can be examined scientifically, as long as it remains an object of this world. That means the sentience that arises out of the physics.

"creationists (including myself)"

You realize that creationist means literal Gen and a 6 day creation?

"Not at all. (a) Reason, accountability, Free will and other similar objects depend upon physics for their very existence. (b) Without the physics, there is no machine to support rational thought and exercise Free will. (c) Those things don't exist on their own, (d) they are creations of the machine called mind. (e) Biologists know that those things are functions of the brain."

A is true
B is possibly true
C is possibly true
D is necessarily false (viewing mind as entirely machine) for any standard concept of free will
E is incorrect, as biologists have found many corollaries of consciousness, but this is improper to call these parts of consciousness itself.

Once you understand that viewing mind as a machine prohibits the possibility of free will, the rest of the argument falls apart.

"You realize that creationist means literal Gen and a 6 day creation?"

This is actually incorrect. A creationist is anyone who thinks that God created directly. Progressive creationists follow the geologic record. Young earth creationists are not necessarily tied to a young age of the cosmos (or even the earth), but more specifically the geologic column (See Roth's Origins: Linking Science and Scripture for the reasons).

I myself am a young-earth creationist, but there is no reason to necessarily link the word "creationist" with "young-earth creationist".

Re:(e) Biologists know that those things are functions of the brain."

" E is incorrect, as biologists have found many corollaries of consciousness, but this is improper to call these parts of consciousness itself. "

It's wrong to call known, demonstrated and understood function as "correlation". Altering the mechanics alters the function. That is a fundamental fact in psychology and pharmacology.

"Once you understand that viewing mind as a machine prohibits the possibility of free will, the rest of the argument falls apart."

You should be able to prove this and give an alternative explanation. Free will is a concept. Concepts can't exist w/o a physical machine to support their existence. That's axiomatic.

" there is no reason to necessarily link the word "creationist" with "young-earth creationist".

The word was coined in ~1860-70 meaning literal Gen. and young Earth creation. Just as their is no valid reason to change the definition of the word marriage, theirs none to change the meaning of this word.

"It's wrong to call known, demonstrated and understood function as "correlation". Altering the mechanics alters the function. That is a fundamental fact in psychology and pharmacology."

You are mixing terms. I wasn't calling it "correlation" as in "correlation instead of causation". I agree very much that it is causation. But it is called a "correlary" because it is not the thing itself. If I were to wire pain circuits in a computer, that would not cause it to get a conscious self that could feel pain. In life (at least human life, possibly others), we have consciousness, which is not something that is even explainable in terms of matter and motion. Noone is claiming (or has ever claimed in my knowledge) that there aren't physically processes involved that affect consciousness. It would be absurd to think so. But that does not indicate that the physical processes are equivalent to the conscious processes.

"You should be able to prove this"

It's very simple. If X is the result of physics, then it wasn't the result of choice. Therefore, if all forces influencing X are physical forces, then the influence of X is not determined by any choice. Physics is a combination of law, and, perhaps, random processes. If X is the result of a law, then we could (given adequate knowledge of intial conditions) determine the outcome beforehand. This means that there was no choice in the matter -- the results could be determined before the physical mind was ever involved. Let's say that in addition to law, there is also chance. But chance is not choice, it is simply randomness. Therefore, while you might not be able to predict the outcome, you cannot say that the outcome is the result of choice, because the deviations from the known are entirely random, not selected. Therefore, in order to bring choice into the matter you have to bring in concepts that are outside of physics.

"and give an alternative explanation."

There is no _need_ to do this, provided my original argument is sound. But the answer is simple -- we have a soul. Sorry if that sounds quaint to modern ears, but in all our learning we still have not found anything that can get past this notion.

"Concepts can't exist w/o a physical machine to support their existence. That's axiomatic."

Actually, it's a baseless assumption.

"The word was coined in ~1860-70 meaning literal Gen. and young Earth creation. Just as their is no valid reason to change the definition of the word marriage, theirs none to change the meaning of this word."

Whether you like it or not, the definition of the word "creationist" currently has more meanings than young-earth. The history of the word is irrelevant in light of current usage. Of course, I'm not entirely sure your history of the word is entirely correct, either.

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